Bitcoin and the lightning network: Zap wallet review

There’s been a lot of debates on scaling for the Bitcoin network in recent months. Well, those debates are about to come to an end. The lightning network is here, and being tested on testnet as i write these lines. This morning, i watched an interview on YouTube. Andy Hoffman was interviewing special guest Jack Mallers, creator of the zap wallet for the lightning network.

I found the interview fascinating so i decided to test the zap wallet on the lightning network. I downloaded the wallet from https://zap.jackmallers.com/ and watched a few tutorials on Jack’s YouTube channel. I installed the zap wallet, and proceeded to get some testnet bitcoins. I then started making contacts on the network. (I had to wait for the testnet bitcoins to be confirmed in my wallet).

*Note: Do not send real Bitcoins to this wallet until it’s ready for mainnet.

I then went to https://yalls.org/ and clicked on the first article. It was requiring a small payment so i clicked on the link for the payment, clicked on the “Pay” button in the zap wallet, pasted the link i had just copied, and sent the payment. It took less than 2 seconds to complete the payment and i was able to read the article i clicked on.

The help section in zap contains the video tutorials to help you understand all the different functions of not only the application but also the lightning network in general. Truly amazing work from the devs of the lightning network. This chain on top of the Bitcoin network is really the answer to the scaling issue. Block size doesn’t matter anymore. I see a bright future for the lightning network.